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Recovering my love of drawing

One thing I’d like to do more often now that I’ve finished The Sceptre of Ice: Draft 2 is draw. I have loads of ideas for pictures, but I never get them done, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m too busy writing.

I used to draw all the time, but for some reason drawing has become a ‘big deal’ over the last several years. Perhaps it’s because digital art offers the illusion that perfection is within reach (every mistake can be erased and redrawn with ease, after all). Perhaps it’s because I’m trying to create more polished, colored pictures with realistic shading, details, backgrounds etc.

Now I feel like every picture has to be a work of art or it’s a waste of time.

So, I spend hours laboring over my art, and I feel disappointed with the results because in the end all I can see are the flaws. Unsurprisingly, I give up after a few attempts and all the interesting ideas in my mind never even get sketched out.

I want to re-think my attitude to drawing; I want to recover the sense of enjoyment that it used to bring me. Of course the pictures in my imagination will always be better than the pictures I actually create, but that’s no reason to just forget them!

So, I’ve decided to draw some of those scenes and character portraits that I’ve been thinking about, not as polished paintings but as sketches. The beauty of sketches is that they don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to draw in every line or detail. It’s about creating an impression. Once they’re done, I’ll put them in my blog so I can look back on them, and I’ll try not to be annoyed by all the flaws I see, because it’s the idea behind the picture that matters.

I need to remember that (for me, at least) drawing is no different from writing. It’s just another means of expressing the story/world I’ve created. With every line I draw, I’m adding more life and depth and detail to Askamar. What could be more fun than that?